


Pieces in Play

by Fyre



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-02
Updated: 2013-11-02
Packaged: 2017-12-31 07:11:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1028774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fyre/pseuds/Fyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the hand of a master, a game might be won.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pieces in Play

**Author's Note:**

> So the latest Once episode thumped me over the head with this bunny and it wouldn't go away.

Killian was not what he would call a man of faith.

Once, he had believed in honour and respect and the greatness of the King. All that had died with his brother, as the veins beneath his flesh riddled black, and he gasped and shuddered, poisoned in the belief of the goodness of their King.

For years, Killian had harassed the coast, stolen from that very same King, but nothing had even an ounce of the worth of what the bastard had stolen from Killian. 

It did not improve matters or change a damned thing. The King was still in power and Killian was the leader of a band of reprobates who looked to him for instruction in defiance and villainy. So he led them, rebelling against every convention and rule that had ever been pressed onto him. He laughed at the pitiful, taunted the weak, scoffed at the poor, and his men followed.

It was a role, and it was easy to fall into it, to force his family from his mind and let it divert him. 

Until Milah.

The damned woman caught his eye when came into dock. She was sitting in a corner of the inn, a distant look in her eyes and a cup in her hands. He knew that look. It was the look of someone who felt trapped.

It was only meant to be one drink. He wasn't meant to be drawn to her anymore than she was meant to leave her husband and child. But Killian broke the rules, and she wanted to do that too, to have adventures, to be free from what society told her she was, and what man could say no to a woman like that?

For several years, they had each other. They had fun together. They took on the world, laughed in the face of storms, and for the first time in years, he remembered what it was to hold someone else in esteem. 

Of course it could never last.

A bitter ex-husband imbued with dark magic found them.

Killian would have died for her there on the dock. He would have died, and she would have been free to continue her adventures. Too many years of being told that it was honourable to protect the person you loved, he thought bitterly, studying the bottle in his hand.

Instead, she protected him, and she loved him, and she died for him.

And that was why he was sitting on the forecastle of a silent ship, rocking on the black seas off the coast of the most accursed island he ever had the misfortune of visiting. 

Neverland. The place where time stood still, and the young were eternally young. An island of corruption and death. The perfect place to contemplate revenge, and to discover a way to destroy a demon deemed unkillable. The poisoned plant was his foremost target, if it still grew. How better to kill something he hated than with the very thing that killed someone he loved?

He took another mouthful of his rum.

The stump of his arm was aching beneath the hook's cuff.

The slap of the water against the keel was the only sound. Once or twice, the ship's bell tolled, a mournful sound, as a larger swell rolled. The crew were below. The darkness of the island had quelled their spirits. Some of them had been there when the Jewel had flown with the sails of Pegasus. Some of them remembered the shrivelled shell their Captain became on their return.

"You don't seem happy to be back, Killian."

Killian felt like his blood was running cold. 

There had been no boat from the shore. From his vantage point, he'd watched the distant island, just to be sure. In the shivering moonlight, nothing had stirred.

He rose from the bundle of ropes he was sitting on.

The boy who had greeted him on the island so many years ago was standing on the rail, one hand caught in the rigging as he leaned out over the black water. Peter Pan. He wasn't even looking Killian's way, but he smiled as Killian dropped his bottle and pulled out a pistol from his belt. It shook in his hand, but he fired.

The crack of the pistol echoed across the waves.

He couldn't have missed, not with the boy only twelve paces away, not even if he was drunk, but Pan straightened up, unharmed. He released the ropes, and looked up at Killian condescendingly.

"Is that any way to greet your host?"

"You killed my brother!" Killian snarled. 

The boy - he was still a boy, despite all the time that had passed - laughed. "Is that so?" he said. He spread his hands, bowing mockingly. "Is that what you tell yourself? That you weren't the one who poured the water that killed him between his lips?"

The gun slipped from Killian's hand, clattering on the deck. "It saved him!"

Pan smiled guilelessly. "And I told you there would be a price," he said. He walked along the rail, light as a cat. "You didn't ask. You just assumed it would be something, instead of someone." He leapt lightly across the opening where Killian's brother had been given to the waves. "Your folly as much as your brother's killed him."

Killian stared at the boy numbly. "What do you want?" he asked.

The boy balanced on one foot on the edge of the rail. "Want?" he said, extending his arms by his sides in a mockery of a high-wire walker. He looked up at Killian again, and the light of the ship's lantern fell on his face, casting it in hues of fire. "I want to play."

Killian felt a flush of rage through him that he hadn't felt for years.

"You think this is a game?" he demanded savagely, stalking down the stairs to the main deck.

The boy switched feet, laughing. "Isn't everything?" he said, his smile freezing Killian in his tracks. "Like the little Captain playing at pirate." He straightened up, setting both feet on the rail, and folded his hands behind his hands behind his back in a parody of the military stance Killian had learned at his brother's knee. "How very, very disappointed he would be."

Killian's hand clenched into a fist by his side. "You don't know anything about him," he whispered viciously. "Or about me."

The boy was suddenly at his back, his hands wrapped around Killian's upper arms. "Oh, but I do," he whispered, his voice an icy whisper against Killian's ear. His grip was like iron, and Killian flinched as his grip tightened. "Believe me, Captain Jones, I know every dirty little secret you think you're keeping. You're in my world now, and your silly little rules don't apply."

Killian wrenched himself free and wheeled around to face the boy. "What do you want?"

The boy smiled that demon's smile. "I told you," he said. "I want to play."

"Play?"

Dark eyes danced. "Oh yes," he said. "With you."

"I don't play," Killian snarled. 

The boy crowed with laughter. "You already are," he said, darting forward, his face suddenly so very close to Killian's. His eyes searched Killian's, and the gleeful malice there made Killian recoil. "I think I'm going to have fun with you, Captain."

The hatch that led below decks crashed open and Killian whipped around, startled.

"Everything all right, Captain?" Smee asked groggily. "We heard a pistol."

Killian looked back at the boy. Or where the boy had been. He was gone, as if he had never been there. 

"Firing on a bird, Mr Smee," he said, searching the deck in the dim light of the lanterns. "All ship shape."

Smee took him at his word, retreating below.

Killian retreated back to the forecastle, but there was no sign of the boy anywhere. It should have been a relief, but it just made the hairs on the back of Killian's neck rise. There was something of the devil about the boy, in his laugh, his smile, his malice, and his absence was no comfort.

It only meant he was elsewhere. Watching. Scheming. Playing.

 

 

___________________________________________

 

 

The island changed around them.

It was like something from a nightmare.

Killian stumbled through the undergrowth, following the screams of his crew. It was almost as terrifying as the final, shivering gasps of the two people he loved, killed by magic. He scrambled over a fallen tree, only to find himself back in the middle of the clearing he had left hours earlier. He had somehow come full circle.

"You should have asked if you would be welcome."

Killian turned on the spot, his gut clenching. "Pan."

"Oh, you do remember," the boy said, smiling. He was perched on the fallen tree that Killian had climbed over. "Bad form, Jones. You must mind your manners."

Killian flinched. The voice wasn't unlike his first Captain's. "This isn't your island, boy," he snapped. "Play all the fancy little tricks you like, but we have the right to be on this land as much as you."

Pan's eyebrows rose. "And you believe that, do you?" he said.

That was the problem.

He didn't.

The island felt like it was a living entity, preying on their fears. It felt like they were invading it, and it was fighting back, and no, he couldn't believe that he had any right to be there. He didn't even want to be there.

Pan slid down from the log, his footfalls nearly silent on the mossy ground.

"If you want," he said, his expression all innocent helpfulness, "I can get you what you need."

Killian shivered, recalling parting vines, a waterfall, and the second poison that only briefly counteracted the first. "I want nothing from you, Pan," he said, through numb lips.

Pan looked disappointed. "And here I was thinking we were friends." He spun in a circle. "I thought you came to visit me, Killian. After all," He turned, his eyes suddenly dark and malevolent, "why else would you try and breach my camp?"

Killian looked around the clearing, taking in the ramshackle structures. "Where are my men?" he asked, putting his hand to his sword.

Pan shrugged negligently. "They'll find one another," he said, "if they're lucky."

Killian's sword shone in the dappled light as he pulled it out. He crossed the space between them in three steps, pinning pan back to the nearest tree, Killian’s sword across Pan’s belly, the hook against his throat. "Enough games," he growled. "Let my men go."

"How can I?" Pan said, wide-eyed, mocking mirth written all over his face. "I'm here with you. I'm not doing anything." He pressed his throat to the hook, the puncture deep enough to release a dark trickle which oozed down to the hollow at the base of his neck. "Maybe, if you kill me, it'll save them."

The unspoken gloat offered itself: or maybe it will kill them, just like the water.

Killian pulled back, his blade hanging loose at his side. Who knew what horrors could be unleashed if he killed the little bastard? There was something of the devil in him, and if you tried to kill the devil, it might only make him worse.

Pan trailed his finger through the blood on his throat and lifted his hand up to examine his fingertips. His lips curled mockingly. “Don’t want to end the game yet, do you?” he said.

“Death is no game,” Killian said curtly, sheathing his sword.

Pan laughed, licking his own blood off his fingertips. “Of course it is,” he said. “It’s the greatest adventure.”

Killian wrapped his hand around the grip of his sword, squeezing it until it hurt. “Where are my men?”

The smile that crossed the boy’s face was chilling. “Some of them are on that adventure,” he said. He crouched down and held his hand over the empty fire pit. Flames flared to life, and he made them dance beneath his fingertips by some dark magic. “This is my island, Captain Jones. No one comes or goes on it without my say so.”

“Your island?”

Pan laughed softly. “Oh, Killian,” he sighed, shaking his head. “What else didn’t your King tell you about this place?”

Killian clenched his teeth. He should have gone back to the palace and wrapped a strip of that vine around the King’s throat himself, pulled it tight, watched him die. Instead, the same King was on the same throne, treacherous as ever, and Killian was being taunted by a child.

In the forest, there was a howl that sent a chill running the length of Killian’s spine.

Pan’s smile shone red in the firelight and he raised his head and crowed in response. He leapt up, whirling to face Killian again. “I would get back to the beach if I were you, Captain,” he said with a mocking little smile. “You wouldn’t want to have to swim back to your ship, would you?”

Killian looked around the clearing, trying to get his bearings. “You’ll let me go?”

Pan hooked his thumbs through the vine twined around his waist. “When the game has barely even begun?” he said, clicking his tongue in disapproval. “Bad form, old boy. We’re just getting started, you and I.” He jerked his head to one of the paths that led out of the clearing. “Your laddies will be waiting.” He smiled again. “Well, some of them.”

Killian strode towards the path, pausing there. “Why are you doing this?” he demanded. “What’s the purpose?”

The flames were behind Pan, and for a moment, he looked like nothing more than a shadow, the faint gleam of his eyes glittering in the darkness. “Fun,” he said, and then he was gone, vanished, as if he had never been there.

Killian recoiled, shuddering, and rushed back into the forests. He didn’t know if he could trust Pan to speak the truth about the way to the beach, but it felt better than lingering in the clearing where the boy stood as a King.

 

 

________________________________________________

 

 

The shadow tormented them above, the mermaid below. 

They couldn’t set foot on land. They couldn’t venture into the water.

At least, not without Pan’s consent, and he was as changeable as the four winds.

A storm had swept in from the sea, blanketing the island in thick, dense mist, lightning dancing across the surface of the sea. The remaining crew - so many lost now - whispered that the creature, the demon, summoned the storms himself, and as much as Killian wanted to silence such superstitious nonsense, something about Pan made it plausible.

The only thing they could do was take shelter in a cove, and pray that Pan’s fickleness would blow the storm out soon.

The men sheltered below decks, and Killian in his cabin.

The lantern hung from the ceiling swung wildly as the ship rolled with every wave. The cabin was cut by slices of light and shadow, changing constantly. It made the place that was his haven feel unfamiliar, uncanny.

Killian propped himself into the window ledge, bracing his feet against the opposite side, and watched the lightning sparking on the sea.

He didn’t know what made him turn, but something did, something wrong.

The lantern swung.

A blade of light slid this way then that. Nothing was there, but then the shadows moved again, and there, on the bed…

Killian scrambled to his feet, bracing his hand against the beam overhead.

“Is this where she slept?” Pan said.

He was sprawled on the bunk like an indolent cat, holding a familiar sheet of paper above his head, tilted towards the light. Killian recognised it instantly: the drawing from his desk, the one Milah did for him, when he reminded her how much he loved the way she looked the first time they met.

“Put that back.”

Pan glanced over at him when the next pass of light washed over him. “Or what, Captain?” he said, propping himself up on his elbows. His eyebrows rose in challenge. “Do you imagine you can kill me? From all the way over there? Over a little scrap of dead wood and charcoal?”

Killian’s fingertips pressed against the beam. “I said put it back,” he snarled.

Pan laughed. “Make me.”

Killian crossed the floor in four steps, and had his hook under the boy’s chin, forcing his head back, pinning him back against the bed. Pan spread his arms, laughing. “I should kill you,” he snapped, snatching the paper from the boy’s hand.

The boy’s lips curved in that vindictive smile, and he curled one hand into a fist. The ship rolled violently, throwing Killian off-balance, leaving him sprawled over Pan on the bunk, as thunder cracked overhead.

Pan’s lips were close to his ear, and his breath was warm. He pressed his slender young neck to the hook. “Try,” he whispered, one arm slipping to rest too intimately around Killian’s waist, drawing him down. Killian froze, remembering the last person who held him so, in this very bunk. Pan’s cheek was against his, smooth as hers was, and his thigh pressed up between Killian’s.

Killian leapt back as if struck by lightning, revulsion on his face.

Pan chuckled, sitting up on the bunk. “Not today?” he suggested in amusement. “If you can’t even kill me to get what you want, I wonder how you think you’re ever going to kill him.”

Killian circled the cabin, putting the desk between them. “Him?”

“Your… crocodile,” Pan murmured, rolling to his feet like a cat. “Rumpelstiltskin.”

For all that the ship was rolling, Pan’s words were the thing to put Killian off-balance. 

They were in another world, another place. How was it possible the Dark One was known even in this realm? He backed away as Pan wandered across the cabin, both of them circling the table. Pan, though, did it with intent, stalking him like an animal.

“What of him?” he asked, holding the drawing of Milah like a talisman.

Pan held out his hand, palm-down, lowering it. Outside, the sea grew still, and the rumble of the thunder faded in the distance. “I’ve known that creature a very long time,” he murmured, “and I know you have it in your heart to kill him.”

“How do you know that?” Killian asked guardedly. His men didn’t speak of the matter that brought them here. They didn’t speak of much anymore, too wary of Pan and his shadow to risk making themselves targets.

Pan sprawled down into the Captain’s chair. “I told you I knew all your little secrets, Killian,” he said, spreading his arms mockingly. “Do you imagine I wouldn’t know the biggest one of them all?” He shook his head. “I’m disappointed, my boy. Very disappointed. I thought you were brighter than that.”

“And you want what?” Killian demanded. “To stop me?”

Pan’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Oh, no, laddie,” he said. “I’ll give you what you need to reach your goal.”

It couldn’t be so simple.

Nothing could be with Pan.

“And the price?”

Pan widened his eyes in mock-shock. “So suspicious? I’m hurt, Killian.”

“Whatever help you’re offering, I don’t want it,” Killian said, his nails biting into his hand. “I’ll never want it.”

Pan moved suddenly, vaulting the desk, and landed before Killian. “A time may come when you change your mind, my lad,” he said, patting Killian’s cheek. Killian slammed back against the wall. That name, that touch, this cabin. There was an echo of Liam, an echo of everything Killian had lost.

“Get out,” he growled, shoving past the boy.

He didn’t need to turn to know that Pan had vanished, leaving only his laughter behind.

 

___________________________________________________

 

Neverland was a place of trickery.

It was why the ship ran short on food, but the bottles of rum never emptied. It was why more than one of the crew had been called to the sea, half-mad with hunger, but reeling from drink, and lured into the waters by the mermaids. 

The crew had seen more than one of their number torn to shreds, eaten alive only yards from the keel. They could have thrown a rope out for him, but the mermaids were there, and they would have caught the line and dragged others in to the same fate.

It was Pan’s doing, and they all knew it, but given the choice of starvation or the brief respite that was granted by rum, they would take the rum. It was a cruel game Pan played with their lives, keeping them on the very cusp of existence. When they believed they might die of hunger, the decks would pile high with food, and they glut until they were sick and swollen with it, but then the food would vanish again.

If they hoarded it, some little would remain. And if Pan was feeling in especially good spirits, they would be permitted ashore to gather some water and provisions, but his mood could change so quickly that they didn’t dare to stay for long. 

They seldom saw him, but Killian knew that the demon with a boy’s face was always watching. He wouldn’t want his game board to go unattended, when there was a piece in play, and that was all they were to him: pieces to be knocked off the board when he felt the time was right.

Sometimes, they risked fishing at night, when the moon was high and the water bright. Those were the nights when the shadow would fly out from Neverland, and those were the nights they knew Pan was diverted.

“It’s coming!”

Killian rose from his place at the prow, looking up.

The shadow passed before the moon, bearing another child.

The demon collected children, he knew. The lost boys had once just been children, before Pan twisted them about. He made innocent boys cruel and deadly. Those children were the ones who hunted his men, if they dared set foot ashore. Sometimes, they were merciful and just killed them. There were many worse fates. 

Only a handful ever made it back to the ship, mute with terror, unable to put voice to their torment. Those were the men who stayed below when the shadow was abroad. He didn’t know what they had seen, but it was enough to make them shudder with fear.

The boy was struggling, and Killian watched in astonishment as he lashed out and fell. He hit the water, and the crew rushed to throw out ropes, before the mermaids could be drawn in by the scent of fresh meat.

They should have left him in the water.

It was one thing to cross Pan, but when the boy raised his face, said his name, when Killian realised that the boy was Milah’s son, every drop of blood turned to ice in his veins. He could no more send the boy to Pan than he could have sent Milah. Baelfire was Milah’s flesh and blood, the son they might have had.

Pan would know of it.

The shadow might not be able to speak, but he knew of the boy’s presence, and sent his second to find out what had become of him.

Killian hid the boy, for Milah’s sake, for the memory of what they might have had.

It was a mistake.

Baelfire found the picture of Milah. At first, Killian couldn’t understand how. Since Pan’s invasion of his cabin, he had locked it away where no one could find it, but Baelfire said it was on his desk, and only one person would have been spiteful enough to put it there.

Killian could almost believe he heard Pan’s laughter carrying on the wind.

The tentative relationship was broken. Baelfire recoiled from him as if he was some kind of monster, the first person he had dared to care about since Milah. 

Pan had taken the calm pool of their existence and hurled a boulder into it, casting ripples and waves in all directions, all for his own amusement. 

So he let the boy go, even if meant giving him to the demon. The boy wanted off the ship, and so, he was off the ship. Killian watched him go, cursing himself for a fool, for caring, for thinking the boy might want a father better than the Dark One.

But Baelfire had spat in his face. 

“You’re just like him”, he said. 

When the boat was out of sight and Pan’s boys were far away, the crew knew better than to make their approval of his action known. Even Smee could see from the look on his face that Killian was in no mood for a gloating “I told you so”.

Killian looked at them blankly, then walked in silence to his cabin.

It would be easier, he thought, if he could just not care about any of it.

He opened the bottle at his hip, the rum, and took a long drink. 

It didn’t help.

He bit back a curse, hissing through his teeth, and walked over to the porthole to look out towards the black shape of the island. Maybe Baelfire was right. How could he hope to be considered worthy anyone’s affection, when he let a demon take the son of the woman he professed to love?

But the boy wanted to go. How could he have forced him to stay, except by binding him hand and foot and locking him below?

He drank another mouthful, then another, until the roll of the ship made him sway. The empty bottle dropped from his hand, but by the time it struck the floor, it had filled once more, and rum spilled from the open neck.

Killian ignored it, bracing hand and hook over the window.

“Something the matter?”

He didn’t turn. He didn’t want to see the smug, knowing little smile.

“You wanted the boy,” he said quietly. “This boy.”

Long-fingered hands settled on his shoulders from behind. They were thin, child-like, but there was a strength in them that Killian knew would be capable of snapping his neck. “I like to have friends,” Pan murmured. His forefingers traced the sides of Killian’s neck. “You know that, Killian.”

He could feel Pan’s breath in his ear and turned his head away.

“Why him?”

Pan’s quiet chuckle made the hair on the back of Killian’s neck rise. “Oh, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he said. His hands slid slowly downwards, fingers curling around Killian’s upper arms. “But he won’t forget you, and the part you’ve played in getting him here, my lad.” His grip tightened until Killian’s breath shrilled between clenched teeth. “Oh, yes. He won’t forget how you stole his mother and drove his father to desperate measures.” His words were whispered maliciously against Killian’s earlobe, sibilant poison. “She would still be alive, if you hadn’t gone near her.”

“If her husband hadn’t killed her,” Killian snarled, jerking against Pan’s grip.

Pan’s fingers were like steel claws pinioning him. “And yet, here you sit, doing nothing,” he whispered. “While he walks and talks and maims and kills at will. And you let him.” He tutted, shaking his head, his sigh a warm slough of air on Killian’s skin, making him shudder. “You failed your brother, and now, you fail your lover and her son.”

“And you’ll help me,” Killian laughed bitterly. 

“Aye, Captain Hook,” Pan murmured.

Killian twisted to stare at him. “What did you call me?”

Pan’s eyes were dark, gleaming. “You heard me, my boy,” he said. “You know what they believe you are: pirate, fiend, thief, killer.” He jerked Killian around, and Killian stumbled back, pressed up against the wall by the slip of a boy. “Take what he has given you and make it yours, Killian. No more honourable Captain Jones. No more fear of repercussions. No more deaths to be accountable for.” His face was so close that Killian could almost taste the words from his lips. “Only vengeance.”

Killian stared at him. “And you’ll help me?” he said again, picking through the rum clouding his thoughts. “Why?”

Pan’s hand closed around the cuff of his hook, lifting Killian’s arm and placing the hook against his throat once more. “Rumpelstiltskin has been a thorn in my side for quite some time,” he murmured. “I see no reason not to unleash a loose cannon on him.”

“For a price…”

“Mm.” Pan’s smile was reptilian and cold. “Giving me the boy as a gesture of good will is a good start. Keep on my good side, Captain, and I will give you the way and the means to find your way back to our dear Dark One. Do whatever I ask, and the poison and the passage will be yours.”

Killian focussed on the boy’s face. He could look so earnest, so serious, for a treacherous, lying demon. “And what will you ask of me?” he asked, dragging the hook down, a shallow cut opening beneath it. Pan closed his eyes, drawing a satisfied breath. 

“Oh, many wicked things, Captain,” he breathed. His eyes half-opened, and he smiled that demon’s smile. “Blood and mayhem and death. All the things that a good pirate knows well.”

Killian thought of Baelfire recoiling from him. You’re as bad as him. What did it matter if he was damned now? He had no one left to disappoint or disgrace. What did it matter if he did as the demon-child asked? No one would care but him, and he didn’t matter.

“You swear you will give me the way to the crocodile and the poison to kill him?”

Pan’s fingers stroked along his wrist. “Don’t you trust me, Killian?” he asked, tilting his head, baring his throat to the hook even more.

“Not even in a little bit,” Killian replied, watching the blood well from the boy’s throat. All he would have to do was push and the boy would bleed so much more. But he would be trapped and no closer to ending the Dark One.

“Then I swear,” Pan murmured. “Believe me and do as I ask, and you will have as much dreamshade as you need, and the passage from my land, when the time is right.”

“And when will that be?”

Pan laughed, sliding his finger under Killian’s hook and lifting it from his throat. “Do you want me to spoil the surprise?” he said. He slanted a glance at the tip of the hook. “Use this, Killian. It would be… poetic.”

Killian drew back, looking at the hook that he wore because of the crocodile. The hook that marked him as the man maimed by the Dark One. A weapon and a reminder of what he had lost and who he was now.

“My name,” he said slowly, “is Captain Hook.”


End file.
